As Michael Crabtree gears up for his NFL debut, the rookie hazing remains at full blaze. Crabtree spoke to reporters in the locker room Thursday — or tried to — as 49ers teammates wandered by with their best one-liners.

“Give me a shout out, Mike,” veteran tackle Tony Pashos said.
“Is this Crabtree’s locker room?” an unidentified player chirped.
Dashon Goldson stopped by with a McDonald’s drink cup and thrust it toward Crabtree as if the straw were a microphone.
Crabtree just smiled.
“They’ve been on me everywhere I go,” he said. “It’s like ’rookie, rookie, rookie.”’
Crabtree’s true welcome to the NFL comes Sunday in Houston, where the former Texas Tech star might start. Offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye said Crabtree could be on the field for as much as half the plays, a figure that will rise or fall depending on how Crabtree fares.
It will be the receiver’s first action since the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 2, when he had a career-low 30 yards against Ole Miss while playing on a bum ankle.
Crabtree said there is no anxiousness about making the leap.
“When you’re out on that field, it’s just football,” he said. “So I’m not really too worried about where I’m at or who I’m playing.”
Raye originally planned for Crabtree to ease into action with a small role as a slot receiver on third downs. But he took an eraser to that plan after seeing how quickly the rookie absorbed information.
“He conceptualizes football extremely well. He’s a quick study that way,” Raye said. “At this point, he hasn’t flinched on anything.”
Between bursts of teasing in the locker room, Crabtree explained that he spent his summer months getting adjusted to the NFL — at least in his head. Away from training camp because of a contract impasse, he studied NFL game film and coaxed his buddies into joining him for a sophisticated game of catch.
Crabtree had friends line up in a Cover 2 and other defensive schemes and rehearsed the routes he would someday run as a pro.
“We were just having fun,” Crabtree said. “I don’t think anything is easy, man. I think you’ve just got to watch a lot of film and hopefully I get it by game time.”
Crabtree, a Dallas native, said he will have 20 to 30 family members in the stands.
The question is how much they will see of No. 15.
Raye said that Crabtree will line up as the “X” receiver, or split end, with veteran Isaac Bruce lined up on the other side. (Bruce, incidentally, debuted on Sept. 4, 1994 and had zero catches against Arizona.)
Raye said that, in all, Crabtree will be responsible for knowing 45 to 50 plays by kickoff on Sunday.
Unlike other players, however, he will not yet be required to know what his teammates on the field are doing. He doesn’t know what routes, say, Bruce and tight end Vernon Davis will be running on any given play.
That’s the 49ers’ attempt to keep things simple.
“The things that he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know them,” Raye said.
For all the talk about X’s and O’s, the best chance Crabtree has of making an impact might be his YAC — yards after catch. Crabtree is 6-1, 214 pounds with the athleticism to break tackles. He scored 41 touchdowns in two seasons at Texas Tech and averaged 120.3 receiving yards per game — the fifth best total in NCAA history.
“He is a natural football player playing wide receiver,” Raye said.
Jerry Rice had four catches for 67 yards in his first NFL game, in 1985. Terrell Owens went without a catch in 1996. Dwight Clark had one catch for six yards in his first game in 1979.
Now, it’s Crabtree’s turn to enter the 49ers stat sheet.
“I’ve been playing football since I was 3 years old and right now I’m at the highest level,” he said. “All I have to do is go out there every day and do what I know.”